Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has declared that Africa could banish abject poverty and hunger with education, good governance and political leadership within 15 years.
Obasanjo said that the continent, including Nigeria, is richly endowed in human and natural resources to be poor.
He stated this in a lecture on Friday titled “How to End Hunger and Poverty in Africa,” which he delivered at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs during the Dele Momodu Leadership Lecture.
He said that the problem of Nigeria and Africa is not relative poverty where people are poor but can eat adequately but abject poverty that deprives people of food.
He identified security, education and good leadership as the three elements that could end abject poverty in Nigeria and rest of Africa.
Obasanjo said: “I was born and bred in a village. We were poor but were not hungry.
“I believe that what those who planned this programme have in mind is abject poverty, which is ignoble and extremely very bad.
“We can agree that ending abject poverty will end hunger and ending hunger will have implications for ending abject poverty.”
He said that abject poverty is caused by the manner a people explore, exploit and distribute its resources.
According to him, no human being is born without certain innate abilities that could be developed for personal, family, community and national enhancement.
But “it is the ability to develop these innate abilities that determine whether one is poor or not.
“Education is fundamental. It is the first and most potent instrument for banishing poverty.
“Where there is no education invariably there will be poverty. And where there is poverty, there will be hunger,” he said.
He added: “We must ensure that no child lacks access to education. Lack of education for a child gives that child a high probability of being abjectly poor and hungry.”
Obasanjo also identified leadership, particularly in the political sector as a potent instrument for tackling poverty and hunger.
He said: “At all levels and in all walks of life we must have leaders particularly in the political and governance sector whose character and attributes are strong, commendable and wholesome.
“Leadership matters most and is the greatest weapon for ending poverty. There is no human organisation that thrives without leadership, especially political leadership. Like Jesus, a leader’s life and history must be an open book.”
Obasanjo added: “We have 44 million that should be in school but are not. If we are going to eliminate hunger we must get all those children into schools.
“I believe that if we do it well, within 15 years we can get our population almost 100 per cent educated. But to do that we need the right leadership.
“If we have that and with elimination of corruption and waste, Nigeria can get rid of abject poverty and hunger within a decade and half.
“We have human and non-human material to banish poverty and hunger and what that applies to Nigeria applies to other countries in Africa.”
He warned that Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gunpowder by not taking “the responsibility of educating the uneducated and integrating them into constructive, productive and gainfully engage them within the society, the uneducated and unemployed will take care of us all a unpleasantly as they can make it.
“To be forewarned is to be fore armed. We should create no room for the poor and the hungry because in desperation their fury will be uncontrollable.
“The good news is that God has endowed us with adequate resources and I believe that we should pray God who has endowed us with all the resources that He should also endow us with leadership for a great leap forward for Nigeria and Africa.”
He concluded by stating that the international community would not accord Africa the recognition it deserved if the continent would not be able to defeat poverty, adding that “Africa is on a journey to be what God has made it to be: a land of milk and honey. But to achieve that, we need all hands on deck, particularly the hands of our leaders.”
